Trashing Days
by in-a-crushd-tin-box
Summary: Years after graduation, Draco Malfoy is fleeing from his old life, his father, death eaters and, last but not least, from himself.
1. Prologue

WARNING: This will be/is SLASH in the next chapters. So if you don't like that for whatever reason, you should LEAVE.  
  
AUTHOR'S NOTES: I may here and there steal from various tv-shows, books and songs without even noticing it. My head is so stuffed with pop culture references, please forgive me.  
  
  
  
Then I come in, they go mad,  
  
hit my nose and hit my back,  
  
break me every single bone,  
  
throw me out just like a stone.  
  
It's the corner, it's the dress,  
  
small the town and big the mess,  
  
that I cause with every step,  
  
but still I walk, nonetheless.  
  
They're skipping backwards,  
  
they're the trashing days,  
  
is that all they're believing in?  
  
Smash my head to make it spin.  
  
It won't change, so come with me  
  
just with your eyes I will see.  
  
Just with your arms I can hold,  
  
and keep away the dump and cold.  
  
- The Notwist: Trashing Days -  
  
  
  
*  
  
Prologue  
  
*  
  
He pressed his body firmly against the cold stones, panting heavily. He had no idea where his persecutors were; if their were still after him, or not, if they had already caught a glimpse of his silver-blond hair, meaning that these were the last seconds of his life.  
  
Draco Malfoy had no idea.  
  
He wouldn't mind being on flight otherwise; but this not-knowing in his new life, the adrenalin rush he immediately felt if he stepped on the street or into *another* motel room, was wrecking him. He could've done without.  
  
Without this life, *his* life, without his bloody existence. Without his history. In the muggle world he was just a normal twenty-something, with a strange look in his eyes, maybe, but, nevertheless, normal.  
  
Of course, muggles didn't know about wizards, they didn't know about The Dark Site. And they most surely didn't know what it was like when one had joined this certain Dark Site and then decided to quit it.  
  
You didn't just *quit* being a death eater. It was more an existential question: either you are it, or you ain't. Nothing in between. No wishy- washy. Certainly nothing anywhere near what Draco had been, or more precisely, done.  
  
Being son of a death eater had always been just a vague term for being death eater yourself.  
  
But while on the outside and to a great majority in his inside, Draco had wanted to be a death eater, his sub-conscience told him otherwise.  
  
It was easy to blend it out of course, even his nightmares about Voldemort, his father and stuff Draco didn't like to think about, could be ignored. While being in Hogwarts.  
  
Fate is nothing you can run away from; and while nowadays, Draco knew another destiny was his, with seventeen he strongly believed that joining his father would be the only way for him - even when he knew deep inside, that he didn't like this way very much; that he feared its crossroads and small sidewalks – so there was no question for him what to do after graduation.  
  
If there had ever been questions asked...  
  
"Sorry, sir."  
  
He snapped himself out of his gloomy thoughts and back into reality. It seemed that this time, he had escaped, and Draco noticed with growing embarrassment that he was still standing pressed against the red-brick building in a small alley in south-west London; and that some passant had just bumped into him and apologized for doing so. Not without casting him an odd look, of course.  
  
He sighed, looked up and down the street and walked on, reminding himself to focus a little more on what he was doing. No good to get more attention than needed.  
  
Another surprising twist in his personality: while the student Draco was always in the middle of everything, practically addicted with getting all the looks, the older Draco had learned to adapt. Learned to be unobtrusive.  
  
He wasn't the same anymore. Where he lived now, the muggle world, the name 'Malfoy' meant nothing. It wasn't his roots he was valued for, only what he did meant something in this weird world he felt so strangely related to, after years of living in it, and in the same time didn't. He would always be a foreigner, a strange experience indeed, being looked at because of his extraordinary name for example, ironically the same name that had always guaranteed him respect in the wizarding world.  
  
Trying to keep his thoughts away from the old times he strolled through the city, towards the old, shabby motel he currently lived in. Maybe he could afford better establishments, but Draco didn't really know how long he would live like this, how long his fortune had to last.  
  
And, better than nothing, he mused, as he opened the door to his little room. He could be glad that he lived. 


	2. Out Of Frame

Chapter 1: Out Of Frame  
  
*  
  
-he can see I'm outta frame, a whish that never came- Josh Rouse: Nothing Gives Me Pleasure  
  
  
  
The coffee was brown, a dark brown, and as Draco dropped a sugar cube into his mug, he watched it soaking with the hot liquid; slowly but steadily getting brown as well and finally sinking off into the unknown depths of the dark sea.  
  
He sighed. Sitting in a coffee house occupied most of his time, as there wasn't anything else for him to do. He felt tired and worn out.  
  
And he was already drinking his 4th coffee this morning.  
  
"May I sit down?" A male voice suddenly asked and Draco looked up. His eyes grew wide in astonishment and he found himself unable to say anything.  
  
After a few seconds that seemed to stretch on for ages he evidentially realized he *had* to say or do something, so he simply nodded, at loss for words.  
  
The young man in front of him hadn't even looked at him, keeping his stare firmly on the floor. Damn. That wouldn't make it easier.  
  
He coughed. "Potter?" He finally spat out, though keeping his voice down.  
  
"Shhh, Malfoy." He had recognized him too? A million questions formed themselves in Draco's head in no time.  
  
"What-" he began, but was cut off.  
  
"I'm doing here?" Harry finished. "Could ask you the same."  
  
Something in his confident attitude stirred anger inside of Draco, and after all this years his time at Hogwarts, that had not a minute ago seemed as far away as an alternate universe, was now disturbingly near, in form of his old archenemy.  
  
All of a sudden, he could *very well* recall why he had hated him so much.  
  
"Well, that's not your fucking business," he snorted, feeling his former self raising against his new shell.  
  
"No." Harry simply replied. "But I'm dying to know what Mr. Death Eater himself is doing in a muggle café."  
  
That was so cruelly honest Draco just had to answer.  
  
"No death eater here, Potter. Look somewhere else."  
  
Now it was his turn to watch surprise creeping over his nemesis' features.  
  
"You mean you're not-" Harry trailed off, shooting glances over his shoulders as if he suspected someone to stare back and take them both to Azkaban. His ways oddly reminded Draco of his own paranoia.  
  
"I was." He said, thinking the same second: What the hell are you doing? Why are you *telling* him this?  
  
Again, Potter's face was an open book to read and endless confusion mirrored in his emerald green eyes.  
  
"You...were? And now you're...not?" he stammered, flushing because of his rather stupid statement.  
  
"Still the best at stating the obvious," Draco said, now sounding neither sarcastic nor cunning, just tired.  
  
Harry was much to thrown to start an argument.  
  
"Malfoy, are you trying to tell me you joined them, and then just said: 'Uh, I'm sorry but I decided otherwise?'"  
  
Draco took a sip from his coffee.  
  
"Yes, that pretty much was it." He shot back ever so cynically.  
  
Harry just gulped. He leant back slowly, looking as if he would need a long time to absorb this information.  
  
Draco watched him over the edge of his coffee mug.  
  
Harry looked...older, of course, but also worn out, with the kind of tired, stressed look attached to him that reminded Draco very much of himself.  
  
What has happened? He wondered. Probably the same thing that happened to you, his mind whispered back. He discovered that life is not all fun and games.  
  
"What about you?" Draco said quickly as if he was regretting his question the very second he had asked it.  
  
Harry looked back, silently, then murmured: "I'm an auror." He said it without the faintest emotion behind it, as if it didn't matter or had lost its meaning a long time ago.  
  
Draco blinked, mind reeling. Should I ask him about it? Then, as if he had gone mad, his inner voice shouted back: Why are you even considering this? You never thought about Potter's feelings, why are you now?  
  
"You've changed." Draco stated. Harry didn't move. In fact it looked as if he was even trying not to breath.  
  
"So have you." It came back after a minute of total silence.  
  
Since when are we so taciturn? It shot through Draco's brain. What happened to our arguments full of electricity, aggression and insults?  
  
Well, the atmosphere still was electric, buzzing with an unspoken tension.  
  
"What is with the others?" Draco finally wanted to know. He couldn't stand this non-conversation anymore and had thankfully remembered that there were also other ex-Hogwarts-students, other than Harry.  
  
"Are you in contact with some?"  
  
Harry looked startled and prepared all at once, as if he knew this had to come. The more surprised was Draco when Harry suddenly jolted up from his seat and muttered: "Got to go now."  
  
It took a few moments to react, then Draco bolted out on the street, running after his old enemy.  
  
Just for a few answers, he tried to convince himself.  
  
He ran right in front of Harry, forcing him stop in his tracks. "God, Malfoy, what's wrong with you?" Harry hissed. "Just leave me alone."  
  
"Right, Potter," Draco drawled back. "What the fuck is up with *you*? I'm asking you something and you speed out of the café as if you-know-who is after you."  
  
He paused shortly.  
  
"Which he actually *is*, but okay, that's off-topic now."  
  
Harry glared back. "You really want to know?" He shouted, shaking with anger now.  
  
"They're *dead*, okay, Malfoy. Dead. Hermione, Ron." He stopped, breathing frantically.  
  
"Because they were Aurors. Because there is war. Because of your fucking father and his death eater friends."  
  
Malfoy didn't even flinch. In fact he didn't show any emotion behind his dark-clouded eyes. He knew this. A strong sense of déjà-vu overcame him. Another time, another person drawing circles in his memory.  
  
"How?" Draco simply asked, still fighting against the claws of history that were trying to pull him back violently.  
  
Harry just stared. He had expected *everything*: yelling, because a Malfoy didn't take such an accuse without beating back, or even meaningless words like 'sorry' or, at least, something like 'it's not my fault'.  
  
He knew it. He knew it was crazy, blaming him, here, now. All the time they had spend with fighting and insulting each other, he had never spoken so honest, so open with Malfoy. And he had never had the guts to tell him right into the face that he *blamed* him, yes, blamed him.  
  
Subconsciously, of course, his rational mind had never allowed Harry to have these thoughts really considered. Surely, Malfoy carried the fault of many things, trifles like detention or points lost during potions. But the real, the *heavy* stuff Harry blamed him for, the injustices he had experienced in his young life, such as the death of his parents, weren't Draco's fault.  
  
And Harry had to accept it. That people like Malfoy, who he naively had labeled as 'evil', weren't the cause for everything. That there were happenings that couldn't be explained away so easily. That there were, actually, grey areas apart from the blacks and whites he had painted his life in.  
  
And one big, unexplainable grey area stood right in front of him, the face a pale mask, the eyes a brilliant blue (was it the light that made it? Harry wasn't sure), calm as always.  
  
"It's not..." Harry's voice croaked. "I-I can't talk about it."  
  
Malfoy only nodded, slowly, even understanding, taking it as if it all had its reasons; just like Dumbledore, Harry thought, with a wisdom that he couldn't place.  
  
"Where, uh, do you live?" Harry finally asked, just to say something, anything.  
  
Malfoy was also glad for the change of subject, it wasn't easy to see one's former enemy so at loss, even more difficult if there were totally new feelings growing inside of him at this very sight.  
  
"At a motel," he answered, pointing down the road, "Pretty un-suitable, but I didn't quite had a choice." He tried a smile, which turned out half sarcastic, half sad.  
  
"What's with you?" He shot a glance at Harry, wondering if he was even capable of living alone in the 'big city', he looked still so much of a little boy.  
  
"Same." The dark-haired wizard replied. "You, want to come along?" He tried very much to let it sound casually, not that he wanted Malfoy's company or anything.  
  
Malfoy eyed him up and down shortly as if expecting a trick behind all this, then said: "Sure."  
  
*  
  
"Now look at this." Malfoy sneered when entering Harry's small motel room, which looked nearly exactly like his own. He supposed that all of London's motels secretly looked the same inside.  
  
"This makes you The Boy Who Lived In A Shabby Motel Room Despite All His Money." He laughed mockingly, taking a quick glance at Harry's furniture.  
  
"Oh, shut up," Harry threw his jacket nonchalantly over the one chair in the room. "Bet yours doesn't look better."  
  
"Worse, Potter, to be honest." Malfoy retorted bitterly. "Quite a change from Malfoy Manson, mind you. If I'm going to be famous as the only one who ever survived quitting Voldemort, I hope I can at least sell my name for some self-help books or stuff. You know, 'How to escape the Dark Lord. Ten tips for your personal success'."  
  
Harry watched him closely, shocked by the altering process Malfoy had apparently gone through. Same façade, surely, but what was on the inside?  
  
"How- how you're doing?" He asked, suddenly concerned about Malfoy's situation.  
  
Draco shrugged, clearly doing as if it all wasn't that dangerous. "I'm coming through."  
  
Harry opened his mouth to say something, then thought different about it. He wasn't really in the position to tell Malfoy how serious this was. He knows that well himself, his mind informed him.  
  
They both fell into silence, not knowing what to say, and Malfoy realized how misplaced everything felt, totally off the storyline, out of characterization.  
  
When someone knocked on the door they both jumped in shock and Draco half- expected his father to come in, taking out his wand to say something like ´Stupid' before muttering the deathly curse.  
  
Luckily, it was only a large, older woman, looking like a cleaning lady. She took one glance at the two young men, then murmured: "Sorry." and closed the door again.  
  
Still startled, Draco just stared at the doorframe when Harry tugged him out of his paralyzed stare.  
  
"You have to get out of here." He said firmly, shoving Malfoy towards the door.  
  
Being caught pretty off-guard, Draco just managed a "What?"  
  
"You don't understand," Harry whispered, now clearly terrified. "They *never* come here to clean the rooms." He opened the door just a little and glanced outside. "And they never *ever* say 'sorry'."  
  
"Potter, you sure your paranoia isn't driving you into something?" Malfoy hissed knowingly. "Believe me, I have some strange stories at hand concerning that."  
  
Harry just shook his head. "Malfoy, they're here. And if they're here that means we have to leave. Now."  
  
He took his jacket and a rucksack lying on the floor.  
  
"C'mon."  
  
They were running till they reached the next street corner. "Are you telling me that that's *all* your stuff?" Malfoy asked suspiciously, indicating Harry's bag. "And that you have it always packed, ready to go?" He laughed, not believing it. "Man, there's someone who has done his homework."  
  
Harry rose one eyebrow, questioningly. "That's necessary, Malfoy." He said slowly, as if talking to a five-year-old. "I thought you were pretty much like me, always on the run."  
  
Malfoy watched, stunned at seeing the tables turned. "Uh, yeah, well... Maybe not *that* on the run. I always had time to get my stuff together, actually."  
  
Harry shook his head, trying hard not to burst out in laughter.  
  
"What are we doing now?" Draco said, hoping he hadn't turned bright red.  
  
"I think it's a lot smarter if we're going into different directions," he then went on, a desperate try to repair his spoiled reputation. "I'm going back to *my* motel and you search for something new."  
  
Harry bit his lower lip, pondering. "Okay," he agreed.  
  
"Bye then. If you need to contact me, my motel is in the-." He told him an endless address that Harry had to repeat several times until he had it right.  
  
"Got it." Harry finally answered, glancing around. "I'm off."  
  
Malfoy watched him go, a slender body in ever too big clothes, fighting his way through the crowd on the other side of the street. 


	3. The Past That Suits You Best

Chapter 2: The Past That Suits You Best  
  
*  
  
I've seen the trauma of lives that were squandered but I'm not to blame for showing restraint. Hey there, don't declare optimist. I try every night to get it right. And still.  
  
No path of truth led me where I could walk but the lies that I made led me out of the swamp.  
  
-the delgados: the past that suits you best-  
  
  
  
Back in *his* motel room, and in safety, as Malfoy tried unsuccessfully to convince himself, he sighed heavily, his heart still racing.  
  
Looking into every corner the little room held and even into the tiny wardrobe (which was pathetic, he knew that) he made sure he was really alone, hoping he could sleep tonight.  
  
How could one day change everything so completely? It was only yesterday when he had thought that this life was going to *kill* him; that it was hopeless. And now...  
  
It's only Harry you met! The rational part of his brain screamed in response to this thoughts. Your archenemy? Remember?  
  
But it was too late. Draco was already curled up in his bed sheets, his mind coming to rest. He was way too sleepy to think about the strange feeling he got in the pit of his stomach whenever he thought about the events of the day.  
  
*  
  
The morning came unspectacular, and as Harry James Potter, The Boy Who Lived, woke up on a sunny day in march, an unconcerned watcher might have had the impression that he was *normal*, at least what muggels define as normal, that he led a normal lifestyle, had normal friends; nothing near the craziness of the last months would ever be likely to be brought in connection with this young man.  
  
His hair was tousled from sleep and on the angelic face he wore the kind of expression people have when they are completely confident with the world around them.  
  
Surely was this fact by far the strangest thing one can imagine. The first night without a nightmare. What relief and suspicion waved over Harry when he realized it, seconds after waking.  
  
The first morning without black figures hunting him down, hiding in the shadows of his past. No Hogwarts this time. No eleven-year-old Hermione and Ron, their childlike faces forever burned in his skull the crucial moment he first saw them.  
  
No endless repeating and re-repeating scenes, picked out of the story of their friendship like from some career-obsessed tv-producer, who played the most sentimental parts in a never ending loop of reruns.  
  
Guilt is a strange sensation, a deadly disease. Once it has you in its fangs, it will never let you go. You may feel nothing over decades and then, when you're only hours away from dying (opening the last door, leaving this life forever), it's there again, with regained strength, getting at you.  
  
In a way, it's like a drug; you never really get clean or away from it. You never manage to get immune.  
  
Harry felt very much like he was shortly before taking an overdose before this strange experience. Weeks of excessive blaming, weighing options, judging the past, yes-or-nos were over. So suddenly and out of the blue that Harry didn't really expected it to be over *over*, but his life had taught him an important lesson ('Take what you can get' may not be the most philosophical mantra in the world, but it just somehow fitted him).  
  
That Malfoy, or rather the weird re-meeting with him after so many years, could be in any way involved with this miracle-like happening – that wouldn't have occurred to Harry in one million years.  
  
*  
  
"You *don't* understand," the man said. "I need this information. It's *very* important."  
  
The girl from behind the counter leant forward, a streak of brownish hair falling in front of her eyes. Tucking it behind her ears sub-consciously, she answered the middle-aged man in front of her without raising her voice the tiniest bit.  
  
"That may well be, Mr..." she glanced at the computer monitor "...Black. But it's not on me to decide whether I give out secret information to strangers. Even-"  
  
She then talked on and Sirius only scowled at the word 'stranger', immediately zooming out on what the young woman else had to say. He wasn't a bloody stranger. He was Harry's godfather, the most important person in his life!  
  
Right, his inner voice informed him, you *were*. Past tense here.  
  
"Thank you so much," he snapped at the airport employee, furious at the memories that had just been stirred inside of him. "And have a nice day."  
  
The girl simply stared at him turning his back on her, walking away in rage, with her mouth open. She didn't even say something along the lines of 'you too, sir'; her sheer astonishment caused by the blank rudeness of the man making her speechless.  
  
Sirius knew, of course, that he was acting childish, that he wasn't going to achieve *anything* with this aggressive attitude, but he couldn't help it. He was so *angry* and that all the time, and it wasn't a fiery, hot, red anger that came and went with trifles like the girl at the airport. It was a more intense, cold fury and much more long-lasting.  
  
It was swapping all over him now, breaking the borders of his well- protected mind, invading his thoughts, making him feel helpless, powerful and calm all at once.  
  
He wasn't himself then, yet he wasn't someone else. He knew this state, hated it, loathed for it and were glad when it finally was there.  
  
*  
  
"Has someone asked for me?"  
  
Every morning the same question, demanded only at different places, addressed to different people; still it was all the same, the same hopeful yet anxious tone of voice, the same relief and disappointment rushing over him when he heard the ever same answer: "No, no one."  
  
Harry nearly jumped out of skin when the large owner of his current stay, a certain Mr. Tubs, said: "Uh, yes, actually-" (he stretched the word as long as possible with his strong British accent) "-there was someone."  
  
Harry stood wide-eyed, jaw-dropped, thinking over and over again *it can't be, it can't be*, these three words racing through his brain with impossible speed.  
  
"Wha-what?" He finally managed, then thought of a more poignant question. "Who?"  
  
"He wouldn't say 'is name," Mr. Tubs replied, his body language not leaving any doubt how impolite he thought that was. "But sure 'e was acting weird! Asking for *the* Harry Potter. Said to 'im: well, more than one Harry Potter's here, surely! Ain't no unique name, was I saying."  
  
Harry smiled weakly.  
  
"'e said again 'e wasn't looking for any Harry Potter, but *the* Harry Potter. Said-"  
  
"Thank you, Mr. Tubs, very much." Harry cut in, hoping this hadn't sound to harsh. "Has he possibly left a message or anything?"  
  
Mr. Tubs shot him a strange glance. "Just a piece of paper." He finally answered, handing him the sheet as if it was about to explode every second.  
  
"Thank you," Harry said again, putting the paper into his jeans pocket without unfolding it. "Goodbye."  
  
The owner nodded slowly, tapping 'A Hard Days Night' by The Beatles on the wood of his counter, without even recognising the melody.  
  
Outside, Harry had the strong association of somebody carrying a time bomb. On a quiet street corner, he took out the little note, staring at it as if he could guess by mere willing who had send it.  
  
Then, with sudden brevity, he read it.  
  
'H., need to see you. Come to the old pub next to your motel. S.'  
  
He snorted, disgusted by the cliché in his hands. H., S., he thought. I'm not in a fucking gangster movie. If Sirius would comprehend that, things would definitely be easier.  
  
Harry nearly tossed the small note, not caring who would find it, not bothering about consequences for a blissful second. Then he pulled himself together. Don't, he reminded himself, make the same mistake again.  
  
*  
  
Silence.  
  
Harry knocked again, listened. Maybe he isn't in, he thought. Dammit.  
  
"Who's there?" Malfoy's voice, so sudden Harry nearly had an heart attack.  
  
"Potter here," he answered stupidly. "Harry Potter."  
  
Malfoy opened the door, grinning mischievously. "Which one?" he asked evilly, taking on Harry's fame as if no time had passed between them and they were still sixteen years old.  
  
Yet, Harry wasn't in the mood for joking. "*The* Harry Potter," he replied with not the slightest hint of sarcasm.  
  
"Hey, I was just kidding." The silver-blonde opened the door further to let Harry in. "Lost the last bit of humour, Potter?"  
  
"Yes, actually, I did." The wizard shot back, his face clouded by the memory. "Exactly this morning, somewhere between 8 and 9 am."  
  
Malfoy had no idea what to make out of this. "What?"  
  
Harry fought with himself. Why did he come here in the first place again? To tell his worst enemy his problems? And why? Because, his inner voice whispered, he is the only one you know in this god damn town. Because, after all this time, he's the only one you have. Tragic irony.  
  
"Someone... passed me a note." He began vaguely, observing Malfoy closely.  
  
"Someone? Do you know who?" Harry really wished Malfoy wouldn't be so direct all the time.  
  
"Uh...just...theoretically...*if* I knew-" Harry didn't know what he wanted to say. It didn't matter anyway, as he was cut off sharply.  
  
"What's your deal, Potter?" Malfoy exploded. "Do you know or do you not fucking know? And could you *please* decide if you want to tell me anything or not? 'Cause like this, you're only wasting my time."  
  
Harry shut his mouth. This was it. His decision. One step. Forwards or backwards? Back into his miserable life, or into something new, maybe dangerous?  
  
"Okay," he heard himself saying. Was it him that acted, that talked? "The note's from Sirius." He awaited a reaction. Malfoy took in a sharp breath.  
  
"He...was involved in the accident where..." Harry didn't talk on, but Malfoy knew what it was about. He felt the sudden urge to comfort Harry.  
  
"It's alright," he said softly. Harry didn't look up, instead he went on, more firmly this time.  
  
"A lot of people died back then. In fact, only me and Sirius escaped a big...massacre. Everyone else was killed, you know, including Remus..."  
  
Malfoy knew where this was leading and he didn't like it.  
  
Harry's voice was now merely a whisper. "And Sirius couldn't cope. I couldn't reach him. And then I just...ran away. To London."  
  
Draco coughed. "You're not working as Auror ever since that, do you?"  
  
Harry looked him in the eye. "No. And I don't think I can change that."  
  
Malfoy just nodded. "So now he's back." He stated.  
  
Harry paced through the room wordlessly.  
  
"And you want to know what to do," Malfoy went on smugly.  
  
Harry lifted his head and glared. "No need to make it harder than it is, Malfoy," he said sharply.  
  
Malfoy's lips curled into an angelic smile. "You want my advise, or not?"  
  
He knew he was being cruel, but who could blame him? Such an opportunity to have a little fun and not taking the chance when it was offered to him on a silver plate? So much Malfoy he still was. And he loved to see Potter squirm.  
  
Harry looked like he was signing his own death warrant when he answered: "I *know* I'm going to regret that, but...yes." 


	4. I Might Be Wrong

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed! Please tell me if you like where the plot is going, I'm not so sure about it myself...  
  
*  
  
Chapter 3: I Might Be Wrong  
  
*  
  
-I might be wrong, I could have sworn I saw a light coming on.- Radiohead: I might be wrong  
  
  
  
Sirius was calm. He wasn't cold, like he seemed, neither was he indifferent. The power that had captured him was bigger, came from deeper depths. And it was necessary, *evident*, as he was waiting.  
  
The start was done, the big effect had been placed in two very short sentences, the rest was silence. The Grande Finale wasn't even near, though he could already taste it (or so Sirius liked to think) in its bittersweet molecules.  
  
Now, that he was waiting, he could've even *laughed* about how easy it was. All the years he had spent both drowning in his sorrow and building up barricades to make it impossible that the first thing would *ever* happen again, he hadn't seen it.  
  
How could he've been so blind when the solution was so obvious, so manifest?  
  
His inner peace, so roughly disrupted, could only be restored by one thing: reconcilation with his godson, The Boy Who Lived, Harry Potter.  
  
*  
  
"For fuck's sake, Potter, he's your *godfather*. Possibly meeting him is not the end of the world."  
  
Harry made the most miserable of all faces, that read ever so clearly 'I knew I shouldn't have told you'.  
  
"You don't know how he acted. So cold. For months, he didn't even telephone. Just sat brooding in his flat in that goddamn city (Malfoy knew by now that Harry had worked in Rome before going to London and that he referred to his former working place only in slightly changed expressions like 'this fucking town' or similar. Losing his two best friends plus semi- losing his godfather had turned Harry into hating the Italian capital with a never ending passion.)."  
  
Malfoy sniggered. "You're acting like a little child, you know that?"  
  
"So what?" Harry pouted, a bit taken aback. "He started it after all."  
  
"Yeah, well denying it to death won't get you anywhere." Draco said wisely, feeling positive about his advice.  
  
Harry, on the other hand, was all in denial-mode. "Denying *what* to death?" he asked, blinking.  
  
Malfoy sighed heavily. "God, *Harry*. That you need each other, of course! You're so oblivious, I'm astonished you don't forget breathing."  
  
But the rest of Malfoy's commentary remained unheard. Harry gawped at his blonde nemesis, not believing what he had just said.  
  
"You're calling me what? Harry?" he said, more amused than anything else. "Since when are we on first name terms?"  
  
Meanwhile, Malfoy had turned bright red and prayed silently to all gods that could hear him to let the earth open and swallow him.  
  
Typically, nothing like that happened. Instead Harry was beaming so widely Malfoy was afraid he would never stop.  
  
"Just a little *slip*," he remarked, annoyed. "Won't make it a habit."  
  
"Uh, yeah, *Draco*," Harry retorted black-humoured. Malfoy glared at him, fearing the answer to his question: "Will you ever stop mocking me because of that?"  
  
Harry stared at him, deep in thought for a few seconds, then replied: "No, actually, I won't."  
  
*  
  
"Sirius." It wasn't a name, it was a statement. A marble statue of a word; not able being moved, replaced, or altered.  
  
Harry wasn't happy. He had been literally *dragged* into the pub by Malfoy, and now, standing in front of Sirius, face-to-face, all the loss and the frustration of the past events came up again.  
  
Why did he listen to Malfoy? Since when did he do what he said?  
  
"Malfoy?!" As much as Sirius was delighted to see his godson in person, *finally*, he was surprised when seeing Harry's archenemy.  
  
"Yeah, stuff it, Sirius." Malfoy spat grimly, "He's only here because I brought him here, so leave your predict at home."  
  
Harry felt a strange sensation when he heard Malfoy talking about *him* in that way, but couldn't put his finger on why exactly.  
  
Sirius just scoffed, obviously neither believing nor accepting what Malfoy had said, but too concerned about the conversation with Harry to start an argument.  
  
"Okay, Sirius, what is it?" Harry took the seat in opposite of his godfather looking him directly in the eye.  
  
Sirius smiled the smallest smile and Harry saw something glittering in his eyes he couldn't quite place.  
  
"I want reconcilation," he said, no emotion in his voice.  
  
Harry stared, anger rising in him like boiling water. "Right. All of a sudden." He paused. "It's not that easy."  
  
The man shook his head. "No, it *is* that easy. Has always been."  
  
Malfoy couldn't help but snort at that. "Strange humour, there, Mr."  
  
Harry glared at him in return. "Save it, Malfoy. This is my problem, not yours."  
  
Draco felt a pang of hurt, so sudden it startled him. "Sure, Potter. All of a sudden it's your fucking problem. A minute ago, you didn't even want to realize you *have* one. Tell you what?" He vibrated with anger. "Just *fuck off*."  
  
Draco saw regret shining in Harry's eyes, but he didn't care. "Malfoy..." Harry said, feeling guilty.  
  
"No, Potter, you fuck up. Listen. You're such an ignorant, egoistic twat. And this, for the record, was the first and last time I helped you out."  
  
With that, he stormed out, leaving Harry (miserably) and Sirius (smugly) behind.  
  
"Well..." said Sirius after a short pause that seemed to stretch on forever. "Where were we?"  
  
It was just a sentence; small, unimportant words queued after one another, nothing special, really...  
  
Then again, it was this sentence that made Harry realize what person Sirius was, better: had become.  
  
Maybe it's unrealistic that one can come to a conclusion about such a complex issue (a character! A human being!) just because of a tiny thing like that, but, somehow, this sentence left all its small, un-unique history behind to be blown into epic proportions.  
  
It was a slice of something bigger, the *last* piece in a mosaic, meaningless when taken out of the picture, yet evident for the final *opus magnus*. It was the last straw for Harry.  
  
"What has happened?" After all, he didn't know why or how. He sat there in front of a product, wrapped up and ready to go, and he couldn't, for nothing in the world, imagine what has *happened*.  
  
Sirius was a bit thrown. "What do you mean?" he asked, and blinked, hoping he would be able to get his mind and this conversation back into track.  
  
"Why... are you this way?" Harry tried to translate his thoughts into words, failing.  
  
Sirius just stared, and then it hit Harry. It was an epiphany, literally, a *coup de foudre*, sent from above maybe, if Harry hadn't given up to believe in a god long ago.  
  
Time. It had taken him. He didn't know this man, not anymore. Sorrow and something very cynical (fate/destiny) had bent and broken him.  
  
Now there were just bits of a personality once intact and if he waited and worked very properly, he maybe would be able to recognize them. But where were the sense in all this? It was over, since years it had been over, it had just been revealed to him.  
  
"Goodbye, Sirius," Harry said, feeling that he had never before grasped the meaning of this stretched-out word like he did now.  
  
He simply stood up from the table and walked out of the dim-lit pub into the sunshine, leaving an entire decade between a grocery store and a bookshop.  
  
*  
  
Malfoy was angry. And he had the bloody *right* to be angry, dammit. And why was he questioning this anger, anyway? He was Draco Malfoy, and though he had changed a lot over the years, he was *still* Draco Malfoy. And this meant suppressing certain feelings and letting out certain others; but, never ever, analyzing them.  
  
Being brought up in a household where feelings were just thought as hindering the real, important stuff and were held pent-up inside... well, Draco maybe could flee from death eaters or even his father, but he couldn't flee from *this*. Education is much too fundamental to be simply wiped away.  
  
And it was all this bottled emotion, collected over the years, that was set free now. It wasn't at all making sense (and then, in a way, it did) that it was happening now. Here. With Potter.  
  
He was over-reacting, way over-reacting. Or didn't he? After a life of being alone, always to yourself, you're getting sensitive. And he felt like he had opened up (even if it was just a tiny little bit) to Potter. Which was stupid, he told himself. Reckless. Hell, *insane*.  
  
Because nothing had changed, nothing. They were still on different, on opposite, sides. So the scenery wasn't Hogwarts and it wasn't teenie-bopper problems and different houses and the question who caught the snitch first.  
  
But that didn't matter. It had always been only these two. Malfoy and Potter.  
  
He just wished he wouldn't stare that way. These blazing green eyes seemed to glow from the inside, as if they were covering up a bigger power. And that made him a little nervous, to be honest. Because what Draco Malfoy needed in this situation was self control. Control in every sense, actually.  
  
Harry Potter was apologizing to him (yes, to *him*) and he wouldn't go off- hands here. No sentimentalism slipping in accidentally. No admiration of this rather heroic act given their history.  
  
And he would have mastered this task effortlessly, if it hadn't been for these eyes...  
  
"Malfoy?"  
  
Shit, had he zoomed out? Draco startled mentally, but managed to hold his calm façade up.  
  
"What?"  
  
Harry watched the blonde boy with growing concern, wondering where this far away look all of a sudden had come from. Though he couldn't swear he had actually seen it – thoughts, if ever readable on Draco's face, were only faint, like dust being blown away by an ever present, emotionless mask.  
  
"You're still there?" Harry repeated, less patient this time.  
  
"I am, Potter, no need to worry," Malfoy sneered like in his best times. Harry had something rather nasty to say in return in mind, but thought better of it. He wasn't here to argue with him after all.  
  
He wanted to apologize. He didn't quite get *why*, but ever since Draco had left the pub, Harry had this nagging feeling in the back of his head, that he could only recognize as guilt.  
  
He breathed deeply, feeling he had to begin all over again. "Look, I'm sorry. It's just that this thing with Sirius has bugged me for years and... I guess I just want to say thank you."  
  
Malfoy goggled. Whatever he had expected, this certainly hadn't been it. Apparently, Sirius had gone completely nuts and there were most definitely nothing to thank him for.  
  
So he just asked the question burning in his skull, straight from the heart. "Why?"  
  
"Huh?" Harry had obviously no idea where *that* had come from.  
  
Draco sighed. He guessed he had to formulate it more precisely.  
  
"Why the hell do you thank me for that encounter with you ex-or whatever godfather who has a) gone completely over the edge and b) has no idea of doing so?"  
  
Harry flinched ever so slightly.  
  
"He's not mad," he said, unconsciously protecting his godfather. He felt like he somehow had to do that – no matter what person he now was, he had once been one of the nicest people he was ever so lucky to meet.  
  
"Sure," Draco drawled, in a way that made Harry feel a bit childish; like he couldn't accept a fact that was long proven to be true.  
  
Harry finally cleared his throat. "Well, whatever."  
  
Malfoy watched him with raised eyebrows. "Well, what?"  
  
Now it was Harry who looked confused. "Man, how's it now? Do you accept my apologize or what?"  
  
"Gone into the ghettos, Potter?" Malfoy automatically picked on Harry's speaking, if only to avoid giving an answer to the previous question was not apparent.  
  
"Ha, ha," made Harry, blushing a little. "How *very* funny, indeed."  
  
Silence fell over the small motel room they both sat in; Harry had gone to Malfoy's right after leaving Sirius and it was getting dark outside.  
  
Malfoy recognized Harry's nervous glance into the blackness and softened a bit.  
  
"Yeah, alright, I guess...," he paused. "... I accept it."  
  
Harry flashed him a wide grin, that gave space for a strange feeling in Draco's stomach.  
  
"No need to get all howdey-dowdey, though," Malfoy added quickly. At least that sentimental part could be avoided.  
  
"Had never such a thing in mind," Harry replied shortly. It should've sounded smooth, but somehow it only increased the tense atmosphere between the two young men.  
  
Draco coughed. "I didn't mean it *that* way," he stated nervously, looking on the ground, at the shabby yellow wallpaper, anywhere but Harry's face.  
  
The same Harry who just took (by any means) a step forward. "Me too," he whispered.  
  
Draco watched him wide-eyed, and for once he forgot all his carefulness and just stared straight into Harry's eyes.  
  
The effect was breath-taking. Had he ever (really) looked into those eyes? Or was it another person he had seen or had *he* been another person or-  
  
In that moment, that *second*, everything stopped. The world stopped spinning. His train of thoughts ended abruptly somewhere between the words he was forming. Everything went black. Then Malfoy realized he had absent- mindedly and most instinctively closed his eyes.  
  
And every cell in his body, every fibre of his brain was only concentrating on what was happening.  
  
Harry Potter was kissing him. Him.  
  
It had just been a soft touch (at first), an unsure meeting of lips that pretty definitely didn't belong on one another. But every rational thought had left Harry's brain.  
  
Still, if it wasn't (and it wasn't!) meant to be, why was this the most electrifying kiss, yes, experience Draco could think of? Mouths went in total synchronism, tongues entwined as if they had never done anything else.  
  
It was eye-opening. Literally.  
  
Harry glanced into the world about twenty seconds later, still in the same position: disturbingly near Malfoy, his tongue still in Draco's mouth.  
  
And everything was different. He suddenly stepped back, as if to take in the whole new situation.  
  
Draco also backed away some steps, his hand over his mouth, making him look like a teenager caught snogging.  
  
Which was exactly what he felt like. Only wasn't it some teacher or other grown up who gave him this guilty feeling. His inner voice was the one who had awakened. In the most displaced moment.  
  
"Uh." said Harry. Hadn't it been such a crucial thing, Draco would've laughed. It was so typical.  
  
"What...was that?" Harry asked rhetorically and felt in the same second incredibly stupid. Of course he *knew* what this had been. He had kissed his former mortal enemy, thank you very much. 100 points to Gryffindor.  
  
Draco suppressed the urge to laugh and both strangle and kiss Harry. Who had ever thought those 'Harry moments' actually lasted to the present day?  
  
"I don't think I have to answer that, Einstein," Malfoy replied mockingly.  
  
Harry wasn't exactly in the mood for a fight, but then again, he had just made out with Draco Malfoy, so who cared? Surely not the outside world which was turned upside down anyway.  
  
"Yeah, I know what we just did, you stupid bastard," Harry spat. "So gloat already."  
  
Draco laughed short and harsh. "Gloat? And why would I do that? I've kissed you. So what? You're not The Infamous Boy Who Lived anymore. And even if you still were, there'd never be a reason for a Malfoy to be proud of snogging a Potter."  
  
Harry was a bit shaken then by this outburst of aggression.  
  
It very much seemed like Malfoy was ridding himself of all the frustration his life had held, which was so similar to Harry's: always trying to please those who you believe are 'the right people', only to find out over and over again that you can't fulfil their expectations. And even if you can, Harry thought bitterly, it's not making things any better.  
  
As you feel after the years that you can't bear it no longer. It's a general feeling of exhaustion, not like after a long day of hard work, but much more deeper-going. Like there is no force in you anymore that can drive you to do anything.  
  
And, some day, you will find there's something missing inside. Actually, there has always been something missing, only you didn't recognize it, because you took the placebo of pleasing people, reaching aims you never were really interested in.  
  
Until it's not working anymore. And the black hole inside grows bigger, sucking in everything that were once important: principles, borders.  
  
"I understand." Harry did understand. Though he knew he had only seen a glimpse of the person that was Draco Malfoy, he *understood*.  
  
Not a lot of people can claim such an experience with broken characters by the age of 25 as Harry did. Growing up with the Dursleys had been an experience, indeed. And he had hated them for most of his life for giving him it.  
  
Now that he was out of Hogwarts and a bit more at peace with them, he could at least remember his childhood days (those before he knew he was going to Hogwarts were the worst) without having the feeling he had to squash things to make it better, to make them go away.  
  
"No, you don't." replied Draco, in a voice that were so dark, so sinister, that Harry cursed all his earlier thoughts.  
  
He just stayed silent after that, everything would've been wrong if spoken out loud.  
  
Afterwards, Harry had often wondered what he would've done if no one had said anything, if it had just been total silence for more than five minutes. Would he have gone? And what would've been different if it actually had been this way?  
  
Well, no point in brooding about the past. 'What past is prologue' or how does the saying go?  
  
"It's so empty, do you know that?" Draco had suddenly spoken up.  
  
In the months and years after this memorable day, Harry had analyzed this situation, trying to reconstruct everything; mostly, trying to solve one of the biggest secrets of human kind: Why had Draco Malfoy told him all that?  
  
Not that there is an explanation or anything. Just that much: Draco had decided to jump. No matter how cold the water might be, or how painful the impact, it just *had* to better than being in this icy no-man's-land, with no one to talk to, no one to understand.  
  
That was what he had considered. One last drop of faith into the river of consequences.  
  
And he let it all out. "Father always said 'a Malfoy needs no friends'. And I had none. I wouldn't even *know* how to make friends, even if I wanted to."  
  
A flashback suddenly hit Harry. He, 12 years old in Madam Malkin's shop, with Draco standing in front of him, offering his hand.  
  
"And in the end it was what I always envied the most." Draco went on, his voice husky.  
  
"Friends. People who understand you. People *you* actually want to understand."  
  
Draco glanced in Harry's direction. "You always thought I envied your fame, or your quidditch talent."  
  
Inwardly, Harry had to admit he was right.  
  
"Well, I didn't. It was your friends. Not exactly Granger or the Weasel, of course."  
  
Harry flinched at hearing their old 'names'. Not because it hurt him, but because there was all of a sudden this nostalgia flowing over him.  
  
Draco made a face. "Sorry," he said, sincere.  
  
Harry shook his head slowly. "It's nothing," he breathed, pictures and voices still capturing him.  
  
Draco coughed. "What I wanted to say, is that you can't understand. You had a fucked up childhood, sure, but in Hogwarts, you had friends. I never had the luxury of people listening to me or my problems. My parents only told me to deal with it myself. When I was a kid, I used to think this was because they trusted me to do things right."  
  
He smiled sadly.  
  
"Later, I knew they were just too busy and that they didn't care."  
  
Harry wanted to say something against that, but couldn't seem to find words that didn't sound fake and corny.  
  
"I'm sorry." He whispered instead, meaning it.  
  
Draco stood up from where he was sitting (the small bed) and smoothed his clothes. "Don't be," he said. 


	5. With Me

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Again, thank you so much for reviewing!  
  
This chapter is also about the work of the police in Great Britain. If you happen to know more about that (and believe me, *everyone* knows more about that than me), please don't flame me!  
  
*  
  
Chapter 4: With Me  
  
*  
  
-evoke the rich tapestry of love and devotion  
  
emote the sweet saccharine of all that devotion  
  
forget all about that and fall in this ocean  
  
with me, with me-  
  
I Am Kloot: Twist  
  
  
  
Harry hadn't slept very much. It had just been a doze, particularly because he had come back to the motel so late and he feared someone had seen him. Then, because the events of the day didn't let him sleep for a while, though he was awfully tired.  
  
He just couldn't stop picturing Malfoy when he had first seen him. Only this time, he thought he could see behind the arrogant expression on his face.  
  
It was like the curse was finally lifted. And this dazed feeling didn't leave Harry.  
  
*  
  
"Look, I think you had enough already. I could call..."  
  
The bartender was young. It was only his second week behind the counter, and there were things he simply couldn't deal with. Like this middle-aged man for example.  
  
Never (neither in tv, nor in real life) had he seen someone drink so much. Drinking excessively, this had always been a term you connect with wild parties, a lot of crazed people and dope.  
  
Nothing was anywhere near this. This was just a small, not highly expensive, still not run down, pub; pretty nice, a bit nostalgic. The kind of pub Japanese tourists expect in London.  
  
It was only somewhere around midnight (not at all what you call late) but the man sitting at the bar was already drunk beyond belief.  
  
He didn't even react as the boy with the wet glass in his one hand and a towel in his other talked to him.  
  
At this moment, someone else darted into the scene.  
  
"Gary!" bellowed a fat, older man, coming out of a door sporting a sign that read 'Privat'.  
  
"Mr. Hill, what-" Gary didn't come to finish his sentence. The addressed Mr. Hill, owner of the pub and co-owner of a small restaurant two streets away, had already spotted the dubious costumer.  
  
Eyeing the drunken man up and down, he asked, suspiciously: "Who's that?"  
  
Gary could only shrug. "Dunno. I've never seen him here before."  
  
Mr. Hill raised one eyebrow and looked around as if someone could be listening. As if on cue, the only other human being in the pub came to the counter and put some money on it.  
  
"G'night," the man said, placing an old-fashioned hat on his head.  
  
Gary raced to the till, taking some cash out. "There you go," he said, Mr. Hill's voice ringing in his ears: 'Regulars have priority over *everything*.'  
  
"Thank you," the man answered, leaving.  
  
"Goodnight, Mr. Goldsmith," Mr. Hill shouted, unusually friendly.  
  
Gary still sorted in the money, while watching his boss standing in front of the sunken heap of a man, who seemed to have passed out completely.  
  
"What are we doing with him?" Gary asked, a bit scared what the answer would be.  
  
But Mr. Hill didn't answer. He was busy checking the customer's leather jacket, getting out a wallet.  
  
"Sirius Black," he read out loud, holding up an ID card. "Look at this." He showed Gary a picture of a black haired boy, 18-years old or so.  
  
"Probably his son," Gary murmured, feeling uncomfortable. He had never been in such a situation before, and though he wasn't really *that* blue-eyed, he didn't like the thought of looking around in a stranger's stuff.  
  
Meanwhile, Mr. Hill took out the money left in the wallet, counted it, sighed, and put it into the back pockets of his jeans. "Better than nothing," he went.  
  
Gary had no chance to say anything. "Come on, help me with this," his boss spat, holding the unconscious Sirius by his arms. "We gotta get him outta here."  
  
That was how Gary found himself carrying the blacked-out man into a dark little alley, throwing him on the asphalt behind a dust cart.  
  
"If you want to be someone in this business, you have to deal with unpleasant things now and then," Mr. Hill said, as some sort of advice, when they went back to the pub.  
  
"And, er," he stopped dead in his track. "You're keeping quiet about that, boy, are you."  
  
His hand weighed heavy on Gary's shoulder.  
  
*  
  
It was a beautiful morning when Draco awakened, feeling rested. What a luxury it was, to wake up and know there was a day to come which wasn't all gray and dull and without hope...  
  
The only thing that worried him when he sensed this unusual euphoria was that he didn't quite know *why*. Because of the kiss? Because he finally had told someone how he felt?  
  
Draco sighed out loud and sat up in his bed, shuddering the moment the cold linoleum touched his bare feet.  
  
As he dressed, he wondered if he could dare to get the papers and sit in the coffee house. He normally waited till it was at least 8 o'clock and there were enough people on the streets, so that he wouldn't draw the attention of possible death eater spies on him.  
  
But then again... It certainly wouldn't pay off to sit all the morning in the motel, and his body also screamed for caffeine...  
  
*  
  
"Oh. My. God." Harry's reaction was identical with Draco's when he spotted the article. And the former death eater held it right in front of his face. There it was black-on-white.  
  
"It has to be a mistake." Harry muttered.  
  
The article was small, only 4 or 5 sentences. "Local Killed By Street Gang" it read.  
  
57-years old Sirius Black... "It can't be him." Harry mostly spoke to himself. "It can't be."  
  
"Harry, be reasonable." Draco replied, feeling everything but reasonable. "How many Sirius Blacks do you think there are in London? That age?"  
  
There were a heavy silence while Draco's words sank in. After a few seconds, Harry lifted his gaze. "It weren't street gangs, were it?" he asked rhetorically. Draco couldn't bring himself to nod. Instead, he read the article again.  
  
"They think so because all his money was taken from him," he explained, his eyes glued to the paper. He couldn't bear seeing Harry in that zombie-state he was in. "Obviously, everything else was still there or they wouldn't have known-" He stopped in the middle of his sentence. "Harry, they..." he choked on his words. "...they probably know where we are. If they knew that Sirius was in town..."  
  
He didn't understand it. Harry couldn't understand it. Hadn't he seen enough deaths of persons he loved (or once loved) to see a *sense* in that all? A pattern maybe? No. The gods wouldn't bless him with such a thing.  
  
And Draco really wished something would happen. If this was a movie, he thought (and he meant muggle movies, he had once seen a few of them; they were full of happy, drop-dead gorgeous people) something would've happened. Harry would've cried, probably shouted insults (if it was more the realistic, non-kitschy movie kind), done anything.  
  
And everything, every possible reaction would've been better than this, at least Draco thought so. (How would he know, anyway? He had never been in a situation like that. Not with this new character-personality thing going on. The one where he actually listened to people.)  
  
Because Harry just sat there, unmoved, like a wax figure (just as pale and un-lively, still you expect them to walk and talk every second).  
  
"D'you want some coffee?" The most stupid thing to say. Yet the only he could think of. Screw it.  
  
Harry just shook his head, his eyes like stale, paralyzed.  
  
Draco went to the counter of the coffee house and ordered the biggest and most expensive coffee they had, one with those impossible flavour combinations, like vanilla-strawberry or something. So sweet he thought he was going to throw up.  
  
*  
  
Five manicured fingernails were tapping nervously on an ugly, old-looking desk. The desk was full of all kinds of things: a computer (old-fashioned, probably still using Windows 95), an odd box which was supposed to hold ball-point pens and pencils (which were of course spilled all over the desk), various envelopes (brown), sheets of paper, files.  
  
The desk belonged to superintendent Thatcher (just as iron-esque as famous Margaret Thatcher) and the place was a police-station in London.  
  
The woman sitting in front of this very desk was Clara Rhue, young, over- motivated and about to make career (if this was ever possible here).  
  
Thatcher was speaking for a very long time now since she had sat down in front of his desk, and she still had no idea where all this was leading. Thatcher was always making impossible long speeches, never getting to the point. More important: never finally telling you if it was good or bad news.  
  
Still there was no way in interrupting him. You simply didn't do that kind of thing, it didn't work like that. Just sit and wait, Clara said to herself, be patient.  
  
"...surely there must be a way to change the situation in this town," Thatcher roared in that moment. "And it's with people like you-"  
  
Clara snapped out of her blank stare and paid attention. He had actually addressed her, after – she quickly glanced to the big clock on the wall- fifteen minutes! A new personal record, certainly.  
  
"-that will help us to..." and on he went, this time ranting about 'muddy waters' and 'raising up the city' (it wasn't Thatcher if there weren't a bit pathos in all this).  
  
Clara sighed silently. Be patient, she told herself again, as if it that was some new, Far Eastern mantra.  
  
That second, a young man burst into the room, a coffee mug in one hand.  
  
Thatcher, disturbed in building a really complex, encapsulated sentence, looked like he was going to kill someone rather than fighting this very crime.  
  
"What do you want?" he bellowed bad-tempered. "Can't you knock or something? Don't you see I'm having a conversation here?"  
  
Clara suppressed the urge of snorting at the word 'conversation' and instead turned around to see who it was.  
  
"It's only..." the young policeman stammered (Clara couldn't blame him; everyone began to stammer under Thatcher's death glare). "...it's really important..."  
  
"Yar, yar," barked Thatcher, gesturing wildly as if to scare off a fly. "I'm coming in five minutes."  
  
Sending a thank you at the ceiling to whoever had heard her prayer, Clara again faced her superior.  
  
"Well..." Thatcher began. "What I wanted to tell you Ms. Rhue." He cleared his throat, and for a split-second Clara had the impression he had actually forgot *what* it was.  
  
"There is this... rather interesting case..." he shuffled along the chaos on his desk, snatching out a file from under a pile of computer print-outs.  
  
And Clara already knew. Nothing about the case of course (how should she?), but what this was. It was bad news. Because this 'rather interesting' case would be a dead end, boring, dull and un-solvable, one of those that no one cared about.  
  
Years of working at the police had told Clara the code of good cases and bad cases. 'Rather interesting' meant the worst kind.  
  
"It's a murder, actually," Thatcher explained, taking a look at the descriptions inside of the file. "A middle-aged man, probably killed by street-gangs..."  
  
He handed her over the file. Clara looked at it shortly, then stood up.  
  
"So..." she said, feeling numb. "Then I'm, uh, going to work..."  
  
"Right," Mr Thatcher replied while opening the door to let her out, only to follow her then.  
  
"Right." Clara repeated quietly, throwing the file on her own desk.  
  
*  
  
The key slipped slowly out of her hand and fell to the ground like in slow- mo, hitting the floor with an unpleasant thug.  
  
It was a movie she was in, Clara was sure of it. Some sadistic film-maker (David Lynch, of course) was making her life a misery, was bringing her in the most depressing situations he could think of.  
  
The day had been torture, to put it simple, and now Murphy's law was kicking in, in all its neat details. Clara bent down to pick up her keys, sighed heavily, and opened the door to her apartment.  
  
It hadn't always been this way, god beware. She loved her job (or had loved it), this had been her *vocation*. Since her childhood days she had wanted it... Still, as Clara took out a bottle of wine and stared into the nearly empty fridge, doubts suddenly crept up in her. All the well considered reasons she had always had (brought up in conversations at various dinners with her parents' friends her mother had forced her to or at the annual class meeting) crumbled into nothing.  
  
Could it actually be, Clara asked herself that you could be *so* wrong about aims in your life? Had her mind tricked her into something? Wasn't this the life she wanted? And if not, *what* did she want then?  
  
This were just the questions you don't want to have bouncing in your head at 10 pm, while you're flicking through tv-channels.  
  
Of course, she had thought about this before. And there had been answers to it, sure, but now, when she thought about it more closely, it had always been the negative, the other way round kind of answers.  
  
She knew what she *not* wanted. She knew she did *not* want to be a pretty- but-dumb blonde, married-with-19 girly woman. She did *not* want to spend her life with her unbelievably boring husband and her whiny children, her social life consisting only of meetings with her dull girlfriends and their unbelievably boring husbands and whiny children.  
  
At that point, the phone rang. Clara picked up, thinking she was going to cry.  
  
"Hiya, darling." Her mother. Great. "Hello, Mum." Clara replied, sniffing.  
  
"What's up with you? Everything's all right?" Anne Rhue, always understanding, motherly and 'there for her children'. Clara hated her in this moment.  
  
"Oh, comme-ci-comme-ca," Clara answered neutrally, hoping any further questions would be averted with that.  
  
"You don't sound very happy," her mother observed sharply.  
  
Clara stared into space. "Just a lot of work, that's all."  
  
How often had that been her explanation for everything, she wondered? It seemed like her whole life (all her sorrow, all her grief) could be summed up by this one sentence.  
  
"If you say so." That didn't sound very convinced, Clara noticed, but she was much to knackered to lie less transparently.  
  
"I'm, uh, really tired, Mum," she finally said, listening into the silence at the other end of the line.  
  
*  
  
AUTHOR'S NOTES: So, umm. A lot of new characters at one time. Like them? Hate them? Please tell me! 


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